Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — About $46 billion in border security was added yesterday to a comprehensive
immigration bill headed toward bipartisan passage in the Senate, but Republicans in the House
voiced strong opposition.

The Democratic-led Senate is expected to approve the White House-backed bill today or Friday and
send it to the House, which probably will not even bring it up for a vote, primarily because of
resistance to a proposed pathway to citizenship for up to 11 million immigrants who are living
illegally in the United States.

“I think this issue is getting ready to slow down a lot,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

Cole predicted that Republican leaders will become preoccupied with an approaching debt-limit
problem and the Sept. 30 deadline for providing new funds to keep the government running.

At the end of 2012, Cole was a harbinger of what was to come in a “fiscal cliff” battle when he
became the first House Republican to publicly back a tax increase on the wealthy that President
Barack Obama was pushing. The increase ultimately became law with some Republican support.

“Until you get the fiscal issues settled, I wouldn’t be looking for any big immigration fight if
I was in leadership,” said Cole, a deputy House Republican whip who helps gauge support for bills
within the party’s caucus.

In the Senate, except for the final vote on passage, the battle over the bipartisan bill is
essentially over.

The bill would give legal status to most of the 11 million undocumented foreigners in the United
States, allowing them to live and work here without fear of deportation.

The first major rewrite of U.S. immigration laws since 1986 also would provide those immigrants
with a chance to gain U.S. citizenship by 2026.

In a show of bipartisan Senate support, 69 of the chamber’s 100 members, including 15 of 46
Republicans, voted for the border-security amendment, which was constructed to lure more
Republicans to vote for the bill.

It would spend an additional $46 billion over 10 years to double the number of agents on the
Mexican border to about 40,000. The funding is far more than the $6.5 billion initially envisioned
by the authors of the legislation.

Despite all the progress in the Senate, members of Congress and immigration advocacy groups
pushing the legislation had reason to be only cautiously hopeful.

Senate Republican leaders remained steadfastly opposed to the measure, somewhat dampening its
prospects, and some House Republicans were disdainful of the Senate’s work.

Although some House Republicans have been working with House Democrats on a comprehensive
immigration bill, many in the party want only a limited immigration bill to advance this year.
Democrats would oppose that.

Rep. John Fleming, R-La., said: “Our viewpoint is that we pass border security first. So if
anything comes to a vote in the House, it’ll be that.”